There is no single book, reading which you can learn everything about life. Infact, learning “art of living” by reading a book is, in itself, an inorganic idea. Yes, like you, I too believe, the organic way to master the “art of living” is learning through our own experiences. After all, no book can explain exactly the way you felt when you saw your first crush, for the first time; when you wore your first wrist watch, gifted by your father to regulate your life within the numbers- one to twelve; when you learned for the first time how to ride a bike; when you bought your first brand new car and the first scratch it got; also, many years later the way you felt when you again saw your first crush, married to a dashing, handsome and a richer guy! Having said all this, don’t you think, still there are many things, where it will be better for us to learn from other’s experience? Like to learn the importance of being attentive while driving you needn’t to actually met with an accident and feel the blue.
Likewise, it’s absolutely not necessary to get admitted to I.C.U. (Intensive Care Unit) to understand how it really feels and what it really means. I hope my personal experience will not only answer these two questions but also impress upon the positive effect of our good health on the people around us, who love and care us unconditionally.
It was 2009, Diwali, which is one of the important Hindu festivals, had just gone by. The festival which also signifies arrival of winter season in northern and central part of India. Like any sub-tropical region of the world, this region also experiences most of the seasons nature has to offer. And, as we know every coin has two sides. The variation of seasons brings with it seasonal viral infections as well.
I was busy, putting around two-third hours of twenty four hours doing my work. You know how it is, when you work for long hours, taking less sleep, not eating sufficient food and obviously no time to hang out with your friends. Within a week your body starts showing signs of fatigue. But, as you have done it earlier, you know that a rest of two or three days will recharge you back. So, I took a break of two days and the third day I was again sitting on my chair and table doing my work. But, this time I was not feeling fresh. Moreover, as few hours passed, even sitting with my back erect became an impossible task. Considering it to be just some weakness, I again took a day off and straight away went to my home and hit the bed. By the evening, got some temperature and by the time of dinner, I was meeting my family doctor.
Complete bed rest and doctor’s prescription for viral fever continued for next two days without any sign of improvement. Infact, the condition was becoming verse as more and more weakness started showing up. Now, my family doctor took me with some seriousness and sends my blood sample for various tests. By the evening, he got the report, reading which, the only sentence he said to me-
“You must get admitted to the hospital”.
And there I was, in the ICU, within the next half an hour. I didn’t knew, he actually meant ICU and not just hospital.
By God grace, I had never been to ICU before this, not even as a visitor to a patient. It was such a silent place that even best libraries cannot offer you! I was feeling extremely weak, lying on the bed with my eyes closed but with my mind completely active and conscious. Doctors took no time in starting their course of action against Dengue Hemorrhagic fever, which causes sharp decline in platelets count. Platelet play an important role in blood clotting and counts around 0.15-0.4 million per microliter (mcL) of blood in any healthy human body. These platelets were only thirty five thousand left in me. People in hospitals wearing apron and stethoscope around their neck, considering themselves most adroit human breed on earth, calls such condition Thrombocytopenia. Hey, let me explain it in a simple way. Lesser platelets count means lesser ability of blood to clot and further lesser platelets count means excessive bleeding i.e. blood will simply come out of your ears, eyes, nose etc. (leaving on you to guess other places!). Obviously, in further simple terms it means, it’s time to say ‘GOOD BYE’ to this world. But still, I was at peace with myself as I knew, these people in apron are professionals, who will really be taking care of mine. One by one, many injections were used by them that made me to ask myself,
“It seems, they’ll pierce my whole body, are they in some kind of competition with each other?”
Soon, I fall asleep and opened my eyes the next day, after more than fourteen hours. I don’t know if it was the effect of antibiotics or a long and deep sleep, as now there was not much pain in my body.
Moreover, after many years I had such a peaceful night’s sleep. Peaceful in the sense that my mind didn’t worked even at sub-conscious level, neither good dreams nor nightmares. Just complete silence, something I was craving for, since a long time. I was wondering if this is the God’s way of sending me on holidays. I mean, looking around the room by moving my eye balls three sixty degrees, I found the room to be more like a presidential suit of some five star hotel and not like an ICU as depicted in bollywood movies of 1960’s or 1970’s. Now, I thank Manmohan Singh for initiating liberalization, privatization and globalization as a Union Finance Minister in early 1990’s and also United States of America for pressurizing India to move in this direction as a result of which today we have such privately owned, big and technically advance hospitals available. No doubt, they do create a big hole in your pocket but they also give you the best available treatment, neat and clean environment and bedding with a jasmine smell!
Technological advancement in medicine promises you better health services. Likewise, technological advancement in communication promises you to connect to your loved ones within a blink of your eye. Soon, the information regarding me being at hospital (that too an ICU) spread like the news of killing of Osama Bin Laden or like the spread of Annan Hazare’s movement against corruption. Relatives started pouring in and the worst part was that they all wanted to see me personally. Overnight, I got a celebrity like status. Everyone was concerned for me. I was the only name in their mind. But, I found living like a celebrity in an ICU is next only to a capital punishment. Don’t you think sometimes even too much of love and concern can become a problem? Believe me, I was in that situation only. I asked my mother, at least to not to inform to any one of my friends about all this.
Alas! I was late.
She had already informed my best friend, who was in the way to the hospital. Actually, the real issue was that I didn’t wanted people to leave their work in-between and visit me. Moreover, every visitor didn’t come with only some fruits and flowers but also with a huge truck of consoling words. All this was making me feel as if I am left with only few hours and they all are coming to offer me their last visit. Meeting one by one to every relative, having “poor chap” written on their faces was more depressing then the idea of spending a whole night with Bobby Darling at any secluded island. But, things are different when it’s about your best friend. Somewhere I wanted my best friend to come and help my parents in coping with the pressure of their only son lying on the bed in the ICU. For me, doctors were there. Like my parents were worried for me, I was equally worried for them. I was aware that they must be going through an emotional crisis. Irrespective of the country, the religion, the society or the belief system you carry, love between the parents and their children is same everywhere. Our family and friends are important for us and we are important for them not because of our extrinsic worth but because of our intrinsic value. I mean, they do not love us just because we earn in six figures, owns lots of ancestral property and things like that. Infact, we will remain important for them even if we lose all the materialistic or worldly achievements.
Within the twenty minutes of my talks with my mother, my best friend was standing by my side. I easily read his face, which was expressing that soon he will take my class and interrogate me, converting this pleasant ICU room into some torturous cell of Gauntanamo Bay.
As my mother left me alone in the ICU room with him, though, in lower tone but in firm voice, he said,
“What the f*** are you doing in this room?”
(Well, I believe people who really cares for you, can talk to you like this even when you are fighting against something that kills around 40,000 people annually.)
Before I could say anything, a nurse entered the room with next doses of antibiotics. For me, she was not less than a God’s incarnation in twenty first century, who took birth to save me from deadly Dengue fever and torturous questions from my best friend. Her presence suddenly bought me back from Gauntanamo Bay to a centrally air-conditioned ICU room.
While the nurse was doing her job, my best friend standing by my side suddenly turned into Tiger Woods, a person who was recently in news not for his golf but for his infinite capacity to love all the human species came from the planet Venus.
Again, in a lower tone but this time with maximum possible politeness, my friend asked a question. This was directed towards the nurse:
“How long he can stay here?”
With this question, the nurse (who was now filling the syringe) and I both were taken aback.
The nurse said, “Excuse me, didn’t got your question”
To which my friend replied by re-framing his question and with some hesitation,
“I mean, how long he has to stay here?”
The nurse said with a big smile on her face,
“This cannot be answered with complete certainty. Only the evening reports will clear the picture.”
To which my friend slowly nodded his head with a small “hmm…”
Lying on bed with my biological system unfit, I was quietly listening and observing both of them and trying to figure out questions like, if there are some chemical reactions going on in their brains, will they be dating each other? You may be surprised, but our mind is mind. Isn’t we’ve all learned that mind has no boundaries. So what, if I am in an ICU room because of some Aedes aegypti, a female mosquito bread smooched my legs few days back while I was out in the evening for jogging. Does this fact take away my right to think about my best friend’s possibilities of dating my nurse!
Before the nurse could leave, I looked at her with some more attention and found she was really attractive. May be because of my illness I was only able to notice the room, a peaceful adobe created by the man and not the beautiful and attractive people from the Venus created by the nature, serving me in that peaceful adobe.
Jokes apart, in the evening, the latest report came out to be not so positive. Dr. Dubey, under whose supervision I was, told this while he was briefing my parents and me in the ICU room. Platelets count was not rising, though it was neither decreasing. Antibiotics were not showing the kind of results Dr. Dubey was expecting. The news bought tears to my mother’s eyes. My father quietly took her out of the ICU room. Dr. Dubey, keeping his palm on my forehead said,
“Don’t worry, everything will be fine. You have to keep faith in medical science and above all in God.”
At this point of time, Dr. Dubey was trying to motivate and instilling some faith in me. It is a well-known fact that doctors are supposed to treat their patients, considering them to be only a body with ailments. They have to take decisions rationally, keeping their emotions and human love aside. Don’t you think a robot engineer also works in the same fashion? He doesn’t feel any pain or sadness when he changes some dysfunctional integrated circuit in his robot. Well, still I will say, doctor’s work is different from a robot engineer’s work. I am saying this because what Dr. Dubey was doing for me now, a robot engineer is never required to do for a robot. He never motivates a robot! I find a doctor’s work is really a difficult one. They have to maintain a fine balance between being a believer in science and being a believer in God. May be this is the reason why we have even in the most advanced hospitals a place for worship.
With those warm words, Dr. Dubey left me in the ICU room with “keeping faith” as a major change in his prescription for me.
I knew, next morning in the wee hours, they will again take my blood sample. Around eight hours were left with me to show signs of improvement. I wanted to improve as soon as possible not only for the sake of my own good health but most importantly for my family and the people who really cared for me.
Since the first night of my illness, when I met my family doctor, I was feeling, it’s not only me who has actually fallen ill and is in the pain. My whole family and other people who consider me close to themselves were going through a lot of stress and anxiety. None of them took a proper sleep. Their life got confined in between my home and the hospital. They were living every moment in uncertainty.
Let me tell you, living in uncertainty is one of the most unwanted situations to live in, especially when it’s about hanging between death and life. Imagine, on a completely dark and cloudy night, you are driving on a long highway. The highway does not have its own lights. To feel the fear of living in uncertainty, switch-off even the headlights of your car. Now, even if you know the highway is free of curves and turns you will still be fearful about what may come next. Even if, Michael Schumacher is driving for you, the fear of something coming in your way will not let you to continue your drive in complete darkness for more than few seconds. If you can go a long way in this manner, then be assured that you are drunk and allow Michael Schumacher to drive you to your home.
Every moment in our life is a teacher. We keep evolving and learning, sometimes consciously and sometimes sub-consciously. Here, I was learning that my good health is important not only for my own good but also for those who loves me. They really do not like me lying on bed in ICU with a weak body. My health directly influences them. It’s up to me, if I want to offer them a sad and dull life or a happy and prosperous life. So, I decided to face Thrombocytopenia with boldness. Other than antibiotics, “keeping faith”, not giving any attention to a negative thought and igniting a firm desire to not just get well soon but also regain back my above average health standards became my ammunition. I guess, actually it was Dr. Dubey’s additional prescription for me that I decided to employ whole heatedly.
The result of all this was clearly visible in the next day’s morning report, the platelet count rose to seventy five thousand. Dr. Dubey allowed me to say good bye to the ICU room. But, still I was to remain in the hospital for the next two days.
The third day, I was a free bird. Though, not fit enough to fly but at least I was breathing in fresh air. Dr. Dubey wanted to see me again after a week with latest reports.
I visited him alone, drove myself to the hospital, enjoying my favorite Bollywood music. When I met him and showed him the latest reports. Reading and analyzing which he asked me a question,
“How is the patient doing? I hope he must be improving very fast. You should have brought the patient with you.”
This brought a smile on my face and I said
“I am the patient… i was that patient”
Listening this, he took off his eyes from the reports and through his Gandhian style circular shaped spectacles looked at me. And the only thing he said
“Oh yes, it was you. It’s difficult to believe, ten days back you was in ICU.”
With these words, his small cabin in the big hospital filled with our laughter and I also got a new friend, with more than twice the age of mine.
